[Blue Lion]

It's better cause it's free.

I was wrong, we already entered the "You can't stop it" phase.

"Movies and songs and shows should be distributed free! I don't know how these people will turn a profit, but it won't be through the distribution of their product! That's mine now!"

This is really some good stuff.

[Kosh]

Ok not quite but the pirate bay trial is finished in sweden and the founders were sentenced to a year in jail and a $4.5 million fine.


This sentence reeks of political pandering. Thoughts?

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,60951.msg1231623.html#msg1231623

only five hours ahead of you. I guess you're finally starting to catch up.

Bork you.

[NGTM-1R]

It's better cause it's free.

I was wrong, we already entered the "You can't stop it" phase.

"Movies and songs and shows should be distributed free! I don't know how these people will turn a profit, but it won't be through the distribution of their product! That's mine now!"

This is really some good stuff.

Of course it's free. Do you grasp the point yet?

And yes, you can't stop it, but that's not the point either.

This is about why it is unstoppable. This is capitalism in its purest form. Dog-eat-dog, kill or be killed. The Pirate Bay and its many cousins have developed a model which does the fundemental tenant of business, reach people, better than previous ones. Ordinarily, this is regarded as progress.

[Blue Lion]

Of course it's free. Do you grasp the point yet?

Why yes, yes I have.

And yes, you can't stop it, but that's not the point either.

Yes they can, in ways you will not like.

This is about why it is unstoppable. This is capitalism in its purest form. Dog-eat-dog, kill or be killed. The Pirate Bay and its many cousins have developed a model which does the fundemental tenant of business, reach people, better than previous ones. Ordinarily, this is regarded as progress.

Not really. No price point, no competitor can fight "free".

They can't lower price to match that, increase quality.

Companies that own these products will do what they have to to make sure their property stays theirs. I think you may be unpleasantly surprised in the things they come up with to stop people from stealing things.

I'm not shocked that "theft" is the best way to acquire something.

[kode]

I fully expect this thread to go into how it's not really stealing, then how it is stealing but helps these companies that own the property, and then how it can't be stopped so we might as well let it go on.

Well, fine, if it is stealing, how come they were charged with contributory copyright infringement and not contributory grand larceny? Because it's not theft, that's why. Theft is what most of the oligopolic organizations are doing. Have the "artists" who sued napster gotten any of their money yet? No, because RIAA and the other ********s stole it from them. That is trading one bully for another.

As for "can't compete with free", it is bull****. What they've been doing wrong is not giving you additional value for what you buy. DRM, as an example, is not additional value to something i buy. Otoh, it significantly lessens the value to me and many others. Spotify went more crappy after they implemented GRM, too, and I'm not even paying for it (hey, there's how you can compete with "free" - by ****ing being innovate ****ers instead of fossilised dinosaurs).

I can go on the google right now and find 10-20 times more illegal stuff. Effortlessly. I can also go on tpb and find a lot more "free" and legal stuff than illegal. It all depends on what you choose to look for.

[kode]

Most of the things the oligopols have done is to find ways to alienate and buttrape their customers. IMO Sony products aren't even worth stealing or copyright infringing.

[Inquisitor]

The problem is, everyone wants to punish the "greedy money grubbers" for butt raping them but they still actually want the stuff that the "greedy money grubbers" make.

If I want to "punish" someone, I avoid their stuff altogether. If more people actually did that, maybe you'd see a change in behavior, price point, DRM reliance...

Vote with your wallet. By not doing that, and perpetuating these "greedy money grubbers" belief that they make a valuable product by still feeding the (illegal) demand, you fuel the fire.

But that's unlikely, because the motivations of many are not some noble cause (the Pirate Bay guys may be "noble" or they may just be attention whores). The majority of the people I know simply do not want to pay for it, either because your poor, or its easy, or you'd rather spend the money on beer. Everything else is justification.

So you get these small minorities of people who are following some "Hacker code" where information should be free, etc, and droves of forumites who justify their own illegal actions with rheotoric.

Its stealing. Its offered for sale, and you didn't pay for it. They were prosecuted under copyright infringement because that is a special type of theft, and probably easier to prosecute and the penalties are probably less severe. Not all murderers are charged with murder, sometimes they get charged with lesser or different crimes. That's just basic litigator law.

You want to have it tried as theft, go out, start your own PB, get arrested and DEMAND you be charged with felony theft (or whatever the local equivalent is). See what your lawyers say.

[Kosh]

Actually in many cases piracy actually helped things become popular and widely sold, starcraft is something that comes to mind. A great many people liked what they saw so they went out to buy it.

Something else to consider is that the vast majority of each CD sale doesn't actually go to the artist, it goes to the recording company. Until that changes, this will continue.

[Inquisitor]

I suspect the sales of Starcraft had just as much to do with Battlenet as they did piracy, since so many people wanted in on the online action and couldn't because Blizzard kept suing people into oblivion who supported it. Maybe that's an argument? It sounds almost as silly as "so many people stole it and liked it, they decided to support a ridiculously litigious company and buy it after the fact."

You really believe that? Kinda rails against the starving artist argument... And the "starving artist" argument is a huge red herring, that's not why people don't pay for music and you know it and it has damn little to do with why people pirate games.

If a game developer or publisher has something you want, acquire it legally, if you protest something about what they are doing with it, don't give them a false sense of superiority just because you want to try it. That makes them think they have something worth selling. If its worth selling, its worth stealing, I believe is the saying. These publishers are taking the converse to heart.

[Bobboau]

people don't pay for music because they grew up with the radio, online distribution needs to be based on this model for piracy to go away. hulu is probably the best attempt at this point.

[Blue Lion]

Well, fine, if it is stealing, how come they were charged with contributory copyright infringement and not contributory grand larceny? Because it's not theft, that's why. Theft is what most of the oligopolic organizations are doing. Have the "artists" who sued napster gotten any of their money yet? No, because RIAA and the other ********s stole it from them. That is trading one bully for another.

I don't mean the guys who run it. I mean the thousands of people who download stuff.

As for "can't compete with free", it is bull****. What they've been doing wrong is not giving you additional value for what you buy. DRM, as an example, is not additional value to something i buy. Otoh, it significantly lessens the value to me and many others. Spotify went more crappy after they implemented GRM, too, and I'm not even paying for it (hey, there's how you can compete with "free" - by ****ing being innovate ****ers instead of fossilised dinosaurs).

So someone sets a price for a product or service. You don't like the price, so you steal it instead? Do you do that with everything?

I'm just unaware what the value threshold is that makes it ok to steal stuff.

I can go on the google right now and find 10-20 times more illegal stuff. Effortlessly. I can also go on tpb and find a lot more "free" and legal stuff than illegal. It all depends on what you choose to look for.

I'm almost positive I can find every "mainstream" movie, song, tv show, program, game etc etc etc. I would love to know what overshadows the massive amounts of data of illegal stuff. Almost everything that is sold and can be put on a computer is there.

[Blue Lion]

people don't pay for music because they grew up with the radio, online distribution needs to be based on this model for piracy to go away. hulu is probably the best attempt at this point.

You'll agree there is a slight difference between recording songs off the radio and shows on a DVR and the wholesale ripping of these items for massive P2P distribution.

I'm sure there is a better way of getting it out there, but that doesn't justify this amount of theft.

[Bobboau]

You'll agree there is a slight difference between recording songs off the radio and shows on a DVR and the wholesale ripping of these items for massive P2P distribution.

I'm sure there is a better way of getting it out there, but that doesn't justify this amount of theft.

well there is different technology involved, but from the consumer's point of view no, there is no difference.

[Blue Lion]

You'll agree there is a slight difference between recording songs off the radio and shows on a DVR and the wholesale ripping of these items for massive P2P distribution.

I'm sure there is a better way of getting it out there, but that doesn't justify this amount of theft.

well there is different technology involved, but from the consumer's point of view no, there is no difference.

I can tell the difference between watching a show on TV and recording it and downloading the entire series online. I don't think I'm super smart.

I know you don't think people can't notice a difference.

[kode]

I don't mean the guys who run it. I mean the thousands of people who download stuff.

Whos crimes was barely talked about in this trial. To be able to claim contribution to a crime, there are quite a few conditions that needs to be met. Proof that a crime has been commited, proof that the contributors were contributing, and proof that they did this intentionally. And like I've previously said and you've conveniently chosen to ignore, one of them were on trial on accounts of being the owner of the owner of the host they rented bandwidth and rack space from and he'd had dinner with two of the others a couple of times as well as lent them some money for a couple of servers once. Not much more than that. Is that enough for a year of prison and SEK 30 million? Not really, imo.

So someone sets a price for a product or service. You don't like the price, so you steal it instead? Do you do that with everything?

That's funny coming from you. Really. And really, when did I say I even commit copyright infringement? I'm more or less a GNU taliban. The few pieces of software I have that isn't free and open source is bought or donated to me. I also have a television set, I pay the license on that, but frankly I don't care much for what's on it. I have an extensive music collection as well, but unfortunately, yes, I have some "illegal" music, as doujinshi produced speedcore is pretty damn hard to come by unless you visit conventions in japan.

I'm just unaware what the value threshold is that makes it ok to steal stuff.

Well, I guess when there's a community of people, the treshold to try deleting it is pretty damn low for you, but I guess I'll answer this for you too. The treshold is when the mafiosos pretending to represent the artists install rootkits on your computer should you dare want to play the audio cd you bought on it. The treshold is when you buy or rent a dvd and first thing when you put it in have to live through ten minutes of propaganda on how you wouldn't shoot a policeman and trailers. The treshold is when author organisations get pissed at the ****ing kindle for it having a ****ing text to speech feature (which was quite useful to people with visual handicaps, but not so much for most else as TTS isn't quite at same-as-actual-person-reading yet).

When you alienate your presumptive customers, call them thieves and sell them crippled goods, is it odd that they start looking for other ways to consume culture? I dare say that it is not. When you can download a DRM free album without any risk of rootkits, when you can download a dvd image without the trailers and ****, when you can download a ****ing book off the internet and have microsoft sam or whatever read it to you, the answer is not to lube your cock up and keep asking your former customers to bend over. The answer is to push things forward. Move the **** into the new era of cultural consumption.

I'm almost positive I can find every "mainstream" movie, song, tv show, program, game etc etc etc. I would love to know what overshadows the massive amounts of data of illegal stuff. Almost everything that is sold and can be put on a computer is there.

Yes, but you're missing the ****ing point again. I'll agree that most things on the top lists may or may not be offered by someone who didn't have the right to, but I challenge you to check each and every torrent passing through the worlds largest open tracker. Open, as in no registration required. It needn't even show up at the thepiratebay.org site. But I already said that and you conveniently chose to ignore that too.

[Blue Lion]

Whos crimes was barely talked about in this trial. To be able to claim contribution to a crime, there are quite a few conditions that needs to be met. Proof that a crime has been commited, proof that the contributors were contributing, and proof that they did this intentionally. And like I've previously said and you've conveniently chosen to ignore, one of them were on trial on accounts of being the owner of the owner of the host they rented bandwidth and rack space from and he'd had dinner with two of the others a couple of times as well as lent them some money for a couple of servers once. Not much more than that. Is that enough for a year of prison and SEK 30 million? Not really, imo.

Basically you're telling me these guys ran these servers that are wildly popular, have massive amounts of data going back and forth, can look at any moment and see tons of illegal stuff and just flat out had no idea what was going on?

That's funny coming from you. Really. And really, when did I say I even commit copyright infringement? I'm more or less a GNU taliban. The few pieces of software I have that isn't free and open source is bought or donated to me. I also have a television set, I pay the license on that, but frankly I don't care much for what's on it. I have an extensive music collection as well, but unfortunately, yes, I have some "illegal" music, as doujinshi produced speedcore is pretty damn hard to come by unless you visit conventions in japan.

Well why don't you? You've clearly shown me it's an ok practice. Why don't you engage in it? What's stopping you from downloading all these things that are way overvalued?

Well, I guess when there's a community of people, the treshold to try deleting it is pretty damn low for you, but I guess I'll answer this for you too. The treshold is when the mafiosos pretending to represent the artists install rootkits on your computer should you dare want to play the audio cd you bought on it. The treshold is when you buy or rent a dvd and first thing when you put it in have to live through ten minutes of propaganda on how you wouldn't shoot a policeman and trailers. The treshold is when author organisations get pissed at the ****ing kindle for it having a ****ing text to speech feature (which was quite useful to people with visual handicaps, but not so much for most else as TTS isn't quite at same-as-actual-person-reading yet).

Firstly, I only do stuff on what I owned lock, stock and barrel. Did you meet him? I did when I bought it. Paid cash too, and credit for everything after. Leave it alone now.

Secondly, you don't like the people? Is that your answer? They're not nice to you? With THEIR product?

"They were mean to me and didn't do what I want, so I stole it"

When you alienate your presumptive customers, call them thieves and sell them crippled goods, is it odd that they start looking for other ways to consume culture? I dare say that it is not. When you can download a DRM free album without any risk of rootkits, when you can download a dvd image without the trailers and ****, when you can download a ****ing book off the internet and have microsoft sam or whatever read it to you, the answer is not to lube your cock up and keep asking your former customers to bend over. The answer is to push things forward. Move the **** into the new era of cultural consumption.

I like how you link their product with culture. I'm not taking songs, or movies or shows that are produced and owned and SOLD by a company, I'm consuming culture!

Your argument boils down to "I don't like them, but I like their product, so I'm just going to take it. It's their fault for not getting on my good side."

Yes, but you're missing the ****ing point again. I'll agree that most things on the top lists may or may not be offered by someone who didn't have the right to, but I challenge you to check each and every torrent passing through the worlds largest open tracker. Open, as in no registration required. It needn't even show up at the thepiratebay.org site. But I already said that and you conveniently chose to ignore that too.

So what? They set up a system that's impossible to manage, so... oh well? Are you implying the guys who run the site are so inept they can't do anything?

That's not really helping the case.

[kode]

you are obviously uninterested in understanding what I'm telling you. well played.

as for why I don't, I actually do. I've imported quite a few items from japan. doesn't make the things I miss easier to come by in my home country, though. Is it really right that archaic interest organizations that since long do not work in the best interest of those they claim to represent should be able to sustain themselves even after they've played out their role? It is not that the music industry is doing bad, it's that the interest groups representing the industry is going bad that has been the main issue for them. The de facto monopolistic chain of cinematic theatres over here said that last year was their most profitable one ever. This including back in the '70s when people went to the movies every ****ing day of the week. I'm sure that's a market in crisis right there. The CEO wants to ban the internet. He's said so in interviews.

Ban. The. Internet.

[Blue Lion]

Ah yes, taking your ball and going home. I have truly been bested here. I guess people weren't stealing tons of stuff after all.

[Bobboau]

if I have the skills and have purchased the materials, would you find anything wrong with me building my own car by looking at an existing one?

[Blue Lion]

if I have the skills and have purchased the materials, would you find anything wrong with me building my own car by looking at an existing one?

You take the plans for movies, songs and programs?  When I see stuff on torrents, I don't normally have to build them afterward.

The old "It's not a physical object" isn't going to fly either.